Are federal tax incentives heavily biased toward centralized, non-residential solar installations?
Is the U.S. government’s focus much too narrow and discriminatory? That is the argument put forth by John Farrell in a recent article for Renewable Energy World. And he is largely right, for now. Farrell’s argument is this: federal tax credits unjustly and unnecessarily favor concentrated solar power plants. The widely accepted reason for this is low-price, cost-competitive solar power. However, Farrell posits that the cost of building a concentrated (solar thermal) power plant is much the same as a solar photovoltaic installation. The difference in price is due solely to disproportionate federal tax credits. And I would tend to agree with him. Take, for example, the existing cap on residential solar installations. There is no cap on the amount of tax credits available for a commercial installation, while there is a $2,000 cap for residential installations. To use Farrell’s example, a business owner and a homeowner both install a $24,000 solar electric system. The business gets a tax c
